Trojan fans love to laugh at UCLA’s misfortune on a general level and as a matter of regular practice. However, I think there are a lot of USC fans who were really pulling for the Bruins to beat Arizona on Saturday night.
We’ll talk about this more as USC-UCLA game week gets rolling, but a first and obvious point is that if UCLA had beaten Arizona, this game would have meant everything.
Both teams would have been alive in the playoff chase. Dorian Thompson-Robinson would have been (more) alive in the Heisman Trophy race, setting up an even duel with Caleb Williams. Both teams’ New Year’s Six bowl chances would have been better. The winner would have had a chance at a 12-1 record, something UCLA has never done and which USC hasn’t achieved since 2008.
UCLA fans: We at Trojans Wire are sincerely upset you lost. We would get more pageviews if the USC-UCLA game had been even bigger. It’s big, but it could have been a whole lot larger on a national level.
At any rate, here are UCLA fan reactions to the loss versus Arizona: